//------------------------------//
// Chapter 17: Pony Town Shake Up part 1 
// Story: The Adventures of Test Subject SP-1K3 
// by Dedion 
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Rhubarb Sweet awoke to the darkness of his underground room. He let out a yawn as he got out of his makeshift bed. The cold early winter air met him almost instantly. It nearly forced Rhubarb back under the warmth of his blanket, but he had things to do today. Plus, it could have been a lot worse. If his mother hadn't built the place as she did, he most likely would have been a popsicle by now.

Groggily, Rhubarb made his way over to his work desk where his lantern rested. He fumbled around for a few seconds for his matchbox before he lit the candle in his lantern. The room was quickly illuminated from the room. While the room itself could be considered cramped to an adult, with the bookshelf, work desk, and living area, it was nearly perfect for a kid like Rhubarb.

With the light now on, Rhubarb set about his next task: heat. He walked over to a large rectangular metal machine that rested a the foot of his bed. The machine was nearly as big as Rhubarb was and yet weighed nearly twice as much as he did. Rhubarb could remember how much of a pain it was to get the contraption down there. Rhubarb quickly went to one side of the machine and found a series of buttons and dials. A few beeps of the buttons and a turn of a dial were all that was needed for the machine to hum to life. The metal grid on the front of the machine began to glow as heat flowed out through the grate in front of it. Rhubarb sat in front of the machine for some time, allowing the hot air from it to warm him up. "I swear, this flameless fireplace is one of the only good things that came out of this war," he said to himself. 

Rhubarb then went on through his daily activities after he warmed himself and his room up. He was nearly done within half an hour with only one last thing to do before he went to study: Breakfast. When the child went to open the chest that contained his rationed food, he realized that he was getting awfully low. "Huh, has it been a month already?" he asked himself, "It's hard to tell down here." Grabbing some of the last few things in the chest, Rhubarb went on to prepare breakfast. It looks as if he would be having his old favorite by the looks of the items he had. "Peanut butter and peach jam crackers for breakfast it is then!" While munching away at his breakfast, he gazed at his notes from last night to see where he had left off.





Sweet Peaches considered herself to be an above-average unicorn living her dream. In the town that she lived in, she had managed to successfully start her own bakery as well as keep it afloat. She had some great friends, survived going to war with dragons, and the horrifying experience of having her horn broken. She even managed to raise a son. Through the pain and the stress, she managed to make her life how she wanted it to be and she was happy. Which made it more fear-inducing when guards came to her town. Many of the ponies assumed it was just a harmless guard patrol, sent to make reassure that everything was fine. However, Sweet Peaches knew better. It may have been a while since she had been in the field, but she recognized the weapons that they were carrying. They were the same weapons used on the front lines. 'The Dragon Slayers' they were called.

Sweet Peaches, and those who knew her, considered her to be a paranoid pony. Her mind often tended to lean towards the worst of outcomes if she didn't correct herself. A simple talk to somepony else could be the difference between life and death for her when her mind was too far gone. While meeting a member of a race one has never seen before might be a bit nervous, it is terrifying for Sweet Peaches. Back before the war, she fainted the first time she met a griffin. To say that she was embarrassed after she regained consciousness would be an understatement. Especially since the griffin turned out to be a pretty swell guy. Her paranoia only grew when she came back from the front lines and it kicked into high gear after she saw the soldiers carrying those weapons.

It didn't matter how she tried to stop it. Her train of thought was already at its destination. The only thing she could do was to excuse herself from the front of the bakery. "Excuse me, I have to go check on something in the office for a moment," she said as she quickly walked into her office, locking the door behind her.

Dragons were here. That much she knew. She didn't know where they were or how close they were to her, but they were here. Peaches could feel her heart beating faster and faster. She tried to think about something else, but she couldn't get the image of a full-blown dragon wreaking havoc on her town. Houses being burned to the ground in nearly an instant. The smell of burn fur washing over everything. Ponies screaming for their lives as their lives are cut short by a crushing jaw. The imagery made the area around her broken horn throb with pain. A side-ways glance at the clock showed her that she would still have five hours before she could begin to close the shop. That's not taking into account those last-minute ponies or the time it takes to go through the closing process. The worry she had only grew more as she realized that she might be a bit late getting to her son. Her heart was still racing nonstop before she tried to calm herself down. 

'Relax, Peaches. Your son is safe and sound. You built that bunker yourself and he should be alright. A dragon won't think too much about some shed in the middle of nowhere and thanks to your fermentation projects nopony will even think to go try and enter it. They'll probably think it's an old outhouse or something like that,' she thought herself, 'Rhubarb will be fine. He'll be perfectly fine. Oh, I'm gonna hug the ever-loving mess out of him when I get off work.'

With that, Sweet Peaches put on a smile before leaving her office. The next five hours were going to be hellish.





Rhubarb looked towards his clock and saw that it was half-past ten o'clock. "Mother should be getting off soon. I hope she packed a big bag too. My dinner wasn't that big and I'm still a bit hungry," he said before turning back to his notes. He had just finished a chapter in Prench 101. While he was skeptical of learning other languages at first, his mother promised that if he could speak at least decently in two other languages then they could take a trip around the world once the war was over.  Not only would he get to see other parts of the world that he had read up on, but he would also get to spend time with his mother while doing it. A smile crept onto his face as he imagined it. However, the sound of movement upstairs quickly got his attention. "That must be Mom!" he said as he rushed to the spiral staircase that leads upstairs.

Now, his mother had told him countless times that he should wait for her to come down instead of him coming up to meet her. However, he hadn't seen his mother in a month and was eagerly excited to see her again. After fumbling with the lock on the hatch at the top of the staircase, Rhubarb flung it open was met by two things. The first being the smell of his mother's fermentation projects. With the enchantments his mother had put in, the smell never came downstairs. Rhubarb nearly gagged as he inhaled the scent. The second thing that he saw was two baby dragons staring back at him. His gaze was returned twofold as the baby dragons looked at him in confusion.

"Spike... what's another baby dragon doing here?" the female baby dragon asked. 

"... I have no idea, Little Fang," the male of the two responded. As the three of them continued to look at each other, Rhubarb had one thought pass his mind. 

'Mom is gonna kill me when she finds out.'